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- Short stories - |
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For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories |
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 For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories byNathan Englander Vintage Books 224 pages, 2000 ISBN 0375704434 Reviewed by Zaheera Jiwaji Nathan Englander's collection of short stories, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, is nothing short of delightful reading. His stories are filled with memorable characters whose misery unseats us, and whose joy enlivens us. We sense that these characters have a life before we met them, and they will continue after we leave them. The stories are of the Jewish world, revealing Englander's own education and training, yet they are all that and more. The characters struggle to balance secular needs and orthodox demands - with the challenges of relationships between husband and wife, Jewish or otherwise. The first few stories tell of Eastern European life. Several stories move on to the Jewish neighborhoods in New York. The final two stories place us in modern Israel. The last story, In This Way We Are Wise, is contemporary and disturbing. It deals with the day-to-day reality of existing among terror, and we sense that Englander struggles to give voice to the big, moral questions of modern Israel. It is vastly different from the first story, and therein lies part of Englander's talent. He weaves from one locale and time to another in an almost seamless cast of characters. They all seem to belong to the same psyche, attempting to live morally in a somewhat skewed world. The Twenty-seventh Man refers to the twenty-six Yiddish writers killed during Stalin's purge of 1952. Pinches Pelovits, a harmless young man who writes recreationally, is wrongly added to this list of writers accused of anti-State writings. It is the cruelest of ironies - Pelovits ensconced in a cell waiting to be executed with the greatest writers of his generation. Not even in his wildest dreams had he hoped to have an audience such as this. It is his best moment, and we know it will also be his last. In Englander's capable hands, this story takes on a fable-like quality. And so it is with many of the stories. We meet a man who goes from being a weak Christian to an orthodox Jew. His wife passes it off as a mid-life crisis, but the crisis is that of the spiritual void in our lives. Englander's stories shift and turn. They offer new insights through different voices. Yet, in some, the reader is left wondering "what happens next?" Is it our greed that wants Englander to tell us more - or is it something we need to work out? Perhaps we want more, simply because the stories are so compelling. Nathan Englander is a writer who will continue to surprise us. |
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